Apologies of the Garden Gnomes
by NoobFish
Summary: She has so many things to say, but will he ever listen? Do garden gnomes ever listen in the first place? The conclusion to the Sequel to Truth is a Garden Gnome.


**And now... For the stunning conclusion of the Garden Gnomes Trilogy... **

* * *

Laying back on his bed one lazy Saturday afternoon, Ron watched as the blades of his ceiling fan sliced languidly through the air. Rufus had already nuzzled into a warm hairless ball on his tummy and was dreaming of cheese and all things cheesy. It had been a slow week, to say the least. For some reason, all the villains had fallen off the radar, and while he would normally spend the weekend gallivanting across the globe with Kim, it felt odd to find himself with some free time. Not that he didn't know what to do with it.

He marinated.

But the monotony, like a bad habit, was soon broken by the familiar four-beep ringtone of the Kimmunicator. Jolting up in surprise, he startled Rufus who glared at him with beady red eyes before letting out a wide yawn and going back to sleep again.

"Sorry Rufus," Ron apologised, as he reached across to picked up the blue device on his nightstand. He thumbed the red button, half-expecting Kim to give him a call to go hang out at the mall when Wade's frantic face appeared on the little screen.

"Ron! We've got an emergency!" Wade said hurriedly as he tapped away at his keyboard. "Quick, I got a GJ supersonic jet arriving in your backyard in three minutes! Get your gear!"

"Woah," Ron jumped to his feet as he started pulling on his mission cargo pants. While hopping around on one foot, "What about Kim? Aren't we waiting for her?"

"That's the mission, Ron!" Wade waved his hands around in fervent panic. "Kim's been kidnapped!"

"By who?" Ron was thunderstruck.

"Shego."

"That..." Ron caught his tongue before he uttered some Disney-inappropriate language. His eyes narrowed. "Don't worry, Wade. I'm on it."

* * *

After countless jumps, parachuting onto Drakken's not-so-secret Pacific island lair was more than a breeze. Ron had learnt after the hundredth and twenty-second time to fasten his belt one extra notch tighter so that he would not spill embarrassingly on the ground in his Fearless Ferret boxers. So far, so good, Ron thought to himself as his soles touched solid ground again. For some funny reason, Drakken never thought to put robot sentries all over his small square-mile island. It would cost a miniscule of a doomsday weapon to actually just wire some security cameras all over the place.

Ron made a mental note to keep it in his "Do not talk about" mental drawer, right next to the Spinning Tops of Doom. He turned his head down towards his ever-present second stomach in his pants pocket and hissed softly, "Rufus, everything okay down there?"

"Uh-huh!" Rufus, wearing a pair of sky-diving goggles, popped his head out and gave the thumbs up.

"Right buddy," Ron whispered back, as he quickly stuffed his collapsed parachute back into the pack. "We're here now. Mission mode. Shego's going to pay for what she's done."

Together, two shadows crept towards Drakken's secret underground lair's skylight. It had provided countless times, easy access for Kim and Ron to storm Drakken's base, blow up the doomsday device, and quick exit that it was almost pointless having a secret underground lair. But Drakken liked looking at the twinkling stars, a view he doesn't get very much from Cell Block F because of the bright city lights.

Quietly, Ron motioned for Rufus to do his thing. Flashing his sharp claws, Rufus cut a small neat circle in the glass skylight, and removed the glass disc before crawling into the opening and unlatching the skylight.

"Good job, Rufus," Ron whispered as he patted the little guy's head. "Now to find Shego."

Unfurling a rope, Ron quickly rappelled down into the main atrium of the lair and got the drop on two henchmen who were playing poker cards at the table in the centre. Pulling out the grappling gun hanging from his belt, he yelled at them, "Hands up! The two of you!"

"Oh man, what is it this time now, Ted?" the first henchman looked irritated by the sudden interruption.

"It's one of those do-gooders..." the second henchman waved him away. "Forget about him, Gary. Now are you going to call or fold?"

"Hey, are you two ignoring me?"

"Look, kid," one of the henchmen looked at Ron with beady eyes. "Union rules clearly state that you aren't allowed to beat us up if we're not involved in a plot to take over the world. That's against the Hero Code of Conduct."

"You're not on the clock?" Ron asked incredulously.

"Look, Drakken's visiting his mommy dearest," the first henchman explained. "Does this look like we're in the middle of some huge operation to take over the world? We're just the skeleton crew here. Everyone else is on shore leave."

"But you kidnapped Kim!" Ron snapped angrily as he waved his grappling gun about.

"Hey, hey, watch where you're pointing that thing!" the other henchman rebuked him. "That could really poke an eye out."

"Oh sorry," Ron flicked the safety back on and holstered the grappling gun. "So tell me where's Kim then?"

"Back corridor," the first henchman nodded towards the archway. "Second door on the left."

"Right, thanks," Ron said as he ran off.

"Alright, I call," the second henchman finally exhaled as he shoved a pile of chips towards the centre of the table.

"Ted, my good man, two pairs, Queens and Aces..." the first henchman laid down his cards.

"Dammit," the second henchman grunted as he tossed his hand back into the centre of the table. "Hey, shouldn't we have told the kid that was Shego's bedroom?"

"No, why?"

"Remember what happened Tyron when he accidentally walked in?"

"Ah..." the first henchman counted his chips. "Don't worry, he can handle himself."

"I sure hope so. Cleaning bloodstained carpets isn't exactly my idea of fun."

"Just shut up and deal."

* * *

With a nervous shiver, Ron twisted the door handle of the second door on the left, and pushed the door inwards. "Kim? You there?" he whispered loudly as possible.

"Yeah, come in Ron." Kim's voice called back out.

"Whew," Ron breathed a sigh of relief as he pushed the door back fully and stepped into the room with Rufus at his feet. "Kim, I came to rescue you. Are you oka-..." Ron's jaw fell open as he saw Kim lying on a bed twirling her red hair with one hand while chewing on a pencil. There was a look of intense concentration on her brow as she poured over the papers lying on the bed in front of her. "is that... Latin homework?" Ron gulped.

"Uh huh..." Kim replied absent-mindedly without looking up.

"B- Bu..." Ron stammered in surprise. "I thought you were kidnapped?"

"Uh huh..." Kim grunted, barely acknowledging her best friend and sidekick. "I still can't believe Barkin wants all this done by Monday. It's impossible without the Rosetta stone, Enigma cipher and Babelfish all rolled into one!"

"Kim..." Ron asked as he looked around the bedroom finally, noticing the contrasting green and black decor throughout the place. The carpet was distinctly black with large green polka-dots, with a bright green leather couch at one corner of the room. The dresser was onyx black, with a few pictures stuck to the mirror. Pictures of... "Is this Shego's bedroom?"

"Uh huh..." Kim replied again.

"But Wade said you got kidnapped, and here you are doing Latin homework in Shego's bedroom?" Ron raised his voice frantically. Suddenly, he cocked his head to the side and looked at her suspiciously, "Is this how you've been getting good grades?"

"Good guess," Kim finally put her pencil down and sat up cross-legged on Shego's black sheets. "Shego called me and she wanted my help in something."

"Oh no..." Ron shook his head. "I'm still not talking to her. Let's get out of here."

"C'mon, Ron..."

"Nope," Ron crossed his arms and shook his head firmly. "I've made up my mind and it's final. You were right about her. You were always right about her. She's nothing but trouble..."

"You should at least give her a chance," Kim spoke quietly. "Maybe she has her reasons."

"Look, I don't care, alright?" Ron exploded. "She broke Jason and Hope up. She made a scene at the Spring Fling. But most importantly, she dumped grape juice over my best friend's dress. Look, I know that bringing her to the dance was the _stupidest_ thing I've ever done. So I'm never going to talk to her, ever again."

"Ron..."

"She's a menace, she's a pain-in-the-butt, she's nothing but a stupid, ugly garden gnome on the Zen garden of society with her pointy red hat and smug smile as her very presence just unbalances the very fabric of the universe, whatever that means!"

"Ron, that's not very nice."

"I'm not here to be nice!" Ron yelled. "I'm here to rescue you! So let's get out of here and forget Shego ever existed, okay? My life was just fine without her, and it'll be just as okay if I never see her again! So I don't ever want to speak to that stupid, ugly garden gnome ever again!"

"But..."

"It's okay, Kim. He's right..." a forlorn Shego-like voice spoke from behind Ron, which made his eyes widen and goose bumps appeared on the back of his neck. Slowly, he turned around, and saw Shego dressed in a black turtleneck and tight jeans leaning against the wall behind the door. She raised her left hand to wipe her eyes, before sniffing. "He's right..." she repeated to herself. "I'm nothing but a stupid, ugly garden gnome."

"Wait, Shego," Kim called out to her.

"Sorry for wasting your time." Shego quickly ran out of the room, brushing past Ron's stunned shoulder, and disappeared down the darkened corridor.

"Nice job, Ron," Kim looked crossly at Ron. "You just made her cry."

"Me?" Ron gasped incredulously. "Make Shego cry? That's... That's impossible!"

"Okay, maybe she just got some dust in her eyes of the Ron-kind," Kim snapped irritably. "Happy now?"

"Uhh... What?"

"Just go chase her!"

"But..." Ron gawked. "That's Shego..."

"Go!"

* * *

After twenty-minutes of searching, Ron finally found her sitting on a window ledge in the cave wall of the secret lair, overlooking the waves that crashed onto the rocks below. She had curled up into a ball, hugging her knees to her chest as she gazed out into the open blue sky. Ron shuffled his feet nervously as he approached her.

"Hey, Shego..." Ron mumbled apprehensively. "I'm sorry for calling you a garden gnome. Please don't break my face and mail me back to my parents in six different parcels."

Shego continued staring out the window without acknowledging Ron's presence.

"So..." Ron bend over to try and look at her face hidden by her long black hair. "We're cool, right? No problems?"

"Ron..." Shego suddenly stirred, causing Ron to jump back in surprise and raise his hands to shield his face. She looked at the terrified look on his face and just sighed as she banged the back of her head against the window frame. "Dammit, Shego... You're totally useless..."

Ron looked at her in surprise. "You alright, Shego?"

"Ron, do I scare you?"

"Well..." Ron gulped. "Not really..." Suddenly, Shego raised her left hand and with a loud rush of air, lit up her fist with green plasma, causing Ron to shriek like a girl as he backed against a wall. "Okay! Okay! You scare me! You win! You win! I give up!"

Shego extinguished the plasma in her hand and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. "I was right..." she spoke softly to herself. "All I do is scare off everyone I've ever cared about."

"Look, Shego, if it's okay... I'll just get Kim and let ourselves out..." Ron slowly backed away.

"Wait!" Shego yelled suddenly as she lunged at him. Wrapping her arms around him, she tackled him to the ground, knocking the breath out of both of them.

"Ow..." Ron groaned as he rubbed the back of his head that got a little knock. He looked down with horror at the raven-haired woman who had buried her face into his chest and refusing to let go of him. "Umm... Shego..." he wheezed as the woman hugged him even tighter. "C-... Could you let me go?"

Shego grunted something into his black shirt that sounded something like, "No." before nuzzling her face deeper into his chest.

"O- O- Okay..." Ron stammered nervously as he wondered if he should try to push the woman away. He squirmed nervously while looking around helplessly. He mouthed to himself, "Kim... Sidekick in trouble here."

"You hate me," Shego sniffed without moving her head.

"Me? H-... Hate?" Ron gulped as he rambled on. "N-... No... Shego... Hate is such a strong word."

"You called me a garden gnome," Shego's muffled voice interrupted him. "You hate garden gnomes."

"Umm..." Ron racked his brain for something else to say. "Look, Shego," he exhaled. "I just said a lot of stuff, okay? I mean, what you did at the prom was so totally not cool. But you know me, I don't hate. Look, the Ron is never about the hate. When you hate then you're bound to get irate, madness is what you demonstrate and that's exactly how anger works and operates. Man, you gotta have love just to set it straight, take control of your mind and meditate, let your soul gravitate to the love, y'all..."

"What?" Shego asked, looking up at Ron's face in puzzlement.

"Umm..." Ron laughed nervously. "Black Eyed Peas... Okay, so maybe that wasn't original. But yeah, I don't hate you or anything. So could you let go of me first?"

"Sorry," Shego mumbled. She seemed to contemplate it for a while, before giving the blond boy one last squeeze and drew back slowly to her knees.

"Heh," Ron propped himself up on his elbows and looked at the woman. "So if that's settled, I'll be on my way..."

"Wait, Ron..." Shego stopped him by placing her hand on his. "I... I just want to apologize for the dance... I tried to talk to you so many times before but I couldn't..."

"So many times before?" Ron's brow furrowed. "You mean..."

"Those late night phone calls?" Shego smiled sheepishly. "Yeah, that was me... I couldn't sleep and wanted to talk to you... But I kept chickening out before you picked up because..."

"Because?" Ron probed.

"Because you were mad at me."

"Oh, heh," Ron rubbed his neck nervously. "I wasn't mad at you." Shego gave him a dead-panned look with a cocked eyebrow. "Okay, maybe I was a little angry..." Ron admitted.

"And the flowers..."

"You sent _that_ bouquet of flowers?" Ron's eyes opened wide. "To my school? Right in the middle of morning assembly? In front of everyone?"

"I just wanted to tell you I was sorry..." Shego explained. "Maybe that wasn't such a good idea..."

"Let's just say that everyone thought that the six-foot tall bouquet was from Bonnie's latest suitor..." Ron slapped his forehead. "Guys just don't get flowers... Not especially in high school."

"I realised that when Kim told me what had happened..."

"Then you know what happened in D-hall right?"

"Yeah, sorry about that too."

"Then the red lacey panties were yours too?"

Shego nodded with a blush on her cheeks. "I blame that on Cosmo."

"Barkin had my parents hauled into school to explain to them that their son was a panty-thief."

Shego looked away bashfully, "Uh huh... I heard about that too..."

"Anything else I should know about?"

"Stripper-gram?"

"I think my mom answered the door that time," Ron replied with a groan. "You know, Shego, you are really bad at apologies."

"I know," she replied quietly. "I just wanted you to know how sorry I was. I didn't mean to dance with those boys or break up Hope and Jason. I just wanted to dance with you. Only you."

"Really?"

"Yeah, and I'm sorry about Kim's dress too," Shego continued in a rush. "It's just that I got mad because Kim was giving me all this crap, and you were flirting with Tara, and all these guys were feeling me up... I just..."

"Wait, I was flirting with Tara?"

"Okay... Fine..." Shego sighed. "I _thought_ you were flirting with Tara until Kim explained to me that you were just friends. I'm usually not this jealous." She wrung her fingers nervously. "I paid for Kim's dry cleaning though."

"You were jealous?" Ron's eyes opened wide.

"Yeah..." Shego mumbled to herself. "Yeah..."

"Because..." Ron's brain refused to complete the sentence.

"Because I like you, dammit!" Shego half-shouted as her face turned a furious red. "I don't know how, or I don't know why, but I just like you... Very much... And when you yelled at me that night, I felt my heart break... I felt that I've let you down so much. After everything you've done for me. You were the nicest, sweetest person to me, and all I have been doing is acting like a bitch and a goofball."

"Oh."

"Oh?" Shego snapped. "I just poured my feelings out to you and all you have to say is 'Oh'?"

"No, no, no..." Ron waved his hands wildly. "It's just... That's quite a lot to take in at one moment, you know? One moment you're fighting Kim ala Pain King-style, and the next moment you're telling me that you like me."

"Oh," Shego covered her mouth. She turned away from him and proceeded to get up. "I'm sorry I said too much..."

"Wait..." Ron grabbed her hand. She tried to pull away but Ron kept his hand wrapped around hers, suddenly realising how small her hand felt in his palm. "Shego, wait... You like me?"

"Forget it," Shego shook her head. "Forget that I said anything."

"No, wait," Ron stopped her as he stood up after Shego, still clasping on to her hand. "Just give me a moment here... I'm usually pretty slow at these things."

"Y-... You're not making fun of me?" Shego asked apprehensively.

"Why would I make fun of you?"

"Because..." Shego took a deep breath. "The last guy I confessed to was way back in high school. He laughed and called me a freak."

"Oooh... Harsh."

"I used my super powers to beat him up and left him crying over a broken toilet bowl in the girls bathroom."

"Oh!" Ron quickly let go of Shego's hand as though it was a glowing red-hot iron. "Okay. Harsh."

"Look, my tongue just slipped," Shego began in a deadpanned voice. "I know, it's stupid, okay? I'm sure you're afraid of a crazy woman with super-powers, so let's just forget about this..."

"No, wait, Shego..." Ron stopped her. "Let me just say that I'm flattered that you like me. I mean, it's not like any girl has ever confessed to me before. Mostly I do all the confessing and all the girls just go, 'Eww!'"

"They don't know what they're missing."

"Yeah, thanks..." Ron stood there quietly, not quite knowing what to say next. A thick heavy silence hung over the air as the two people just looked everywhere but each other.

Shego opened her mouth to say something before she just closed it suddenly. She shuffled nervously on her feet as she avoided looking at his eyes. "Umm..." she bit her lower lip.

"Yeah?" Ron looked up, glad that she broke the silence.

"Nothing."

"Really?"

"Yeah, nothing..."

"Oh, okay..."

"Look, for god's sake, can you two just stop standing around like garden gnomes?" Kim's voice suddenly yelled out loudly from down the corridor. "Just get it over with! Ask each other out! Get naked! I don't care, I need to get home and find my Latin dictionary already! Ron, we're leaving in five minutes."

"Ah..." Ron looked over his shoulder in embarrassment. "Err... Okay, Kim," he called back to her. Turning back to Shego, he mumbled, "Ah... That was awkward... Do you suppose she heard everything?"

"Dammit, Kim..." Shego cursed under her breath. Coughing slightly, she cleared her throat and said, "Yeah, so... I just want to say I'm sorry and all that."

"It's okay, it's all water under the bridge now..."

"Right, so see you around then, I guess."

"Umm... Shego... Maybe Kim's right..." Ron began, before Shego's eyes suddenly opened wide.

"You mean?"

"What?" Ron looked puzzled before he suddenly blushed. "No, I meant, you know, ask you out. Nothing about getting naked. No sir, Ron-man doesn't have such dirty thoughts..."

"Just hold that thought, Ron," Shego gave him a sly smile. "So how does Friday night sound?"

"I... I'd... I'd love to..." Ron stammered as he tried to clear his thoughts. "Go out, I mean..." Ron blurted out.

"Right, it's a date then."

"Right, date..." Ron echoed.

"So, see you then?"

"Sure... See you then." Ron slowly got to his feet and gave her an awkward smile. As he turned away, he paused mid-way as though something was on his mind. He turned to look at Shego looking up expectantly at him. "You know what," Ron shrugged his shoulders. "About what I said back then... Well, just so you know... About the whole garden gnome thing..." He cleared his throat as he rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. "If you were a garden gnome, you'd be my favourite garden gnome."

Shego's face broke out in a wide smile as she wiped the tears from the edge of her eye. "You too," she found herself saying. "You too."

* * *

**Author's Notes**

Okay, not quite as dramatic as I'd hoped. But I hope this will be a satisfying conclusion to a wonderful beginning of the wonderful world of RonGo. Yay! Anyway, I shall conclude here before the other chapters becomes drivel of WAFF and SAPP and MUSH and other weird acronyms that I can think of. Now I know there are loose strings left, such as:

_How will the date between Shego and Ron turn out?_

_Would Hope ever get back with Jason again?_

_Will Ron bring Shego to another school dance again?_

_Whatever happened to that stripper-gram?_

_Will Kim ever find her Latin dictionary and finish her Latin homework in time? _

That, I leave to the reader to decide. Yes, I'm copping out. In the mean time... Other fics are calling.


End file.
